Shaking Hands and Congratulations

What you wanted to do was get out of there and kiss your girlfriends - all the work and the stress had paid off. The best you could do, however, was give them both hugs and slap Eric on the back because you were still in a professional atmosphere. Garrison and the other lawyers and associates from the firm were there waiting to congratulate you, and the other firm’s lawyers were there too. Not to mention your opponents and Judge Mathews.

And, despite the interesting plans you’d been making with Amanda and Maeve, the reality was that Judge Mathews was the most important person to talk to in the room. His letter of recommendation would probably help a ton if you could convince him to give it. Getting to that point would take some finesse though, and step one was continuing to try and show you and the girls were worthy of it.

After letting out another long breath following your quick, back-slapping hug with Eric you nodded towards the Plaintiff's table and your team nodded and followed you.

“Well fought,” you said, holding out your hand as you approached. It didn’t feel especially right, but it also felt wrong to say that they’d argued their case well because they really hadn’t. You had a small stack of file folders that had been meant to deal with several lines of attack that you and Eric had spotted during the ‘opposition’ part of your planning.

Tucker, looking grim, just nodded and shook your hand, and then the others. Samantha was next in line and she looked more disgusted than grim, and her handshake was weak and limp-wristed.

Thomas just looked at your hand and went back to packing his bag.

“You guys kicked our butts,” Amanda said, maybe a little forcefully so that she rubbed it into the three hotheads of her intern team. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you very much,” you said. Her handshake was firm and decisive, and she made eye contact as she shook your hand.

Maeve was last in line at the table. She hadn’t said a single thing throughout any of the mock trial; hadn’t questioned a witness, made a statement, or lodged an objection. The British goth had, in fact, looked like she’d been doodling on her tablet for most of the last day and a half.

“Congratulations,” she said, standing up and shaking your hand quickly. “If we had approached you prior to the trial with a settlement of one-half the policy, would you have accepted?”

“Uh, possibly,” you said. “If this were a real civil case, probably. The only reason we wouldn’t have would have been because the Lawyers wanted to actually see us do some mock trial.”

She smirked and glanced at Amanda next to her. “Called it,” she said, then turned back to me. “Did you guys have a line of questioning to deal with the-”

“Maeve,” Amanda interrupted. “How about we do that stuff while we’re getting drinks? Thursday night, right?”

“Absolutely,” Sabrina said, next in line and shaking Amanda’s hand. “Looking forward to it. A lot.” She gave a little smirk of her own at that.

“Alright,” Maeve said, then looked right into your eyes intensely. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too,” you said sincerely.

For some reason, even though Amanda was the one with the extremely generous assets that you wanted to get your mouth and hands-on, it was Maeve that you suspected would be the wild fuck. It might have just been her Asperger’s, but her single-minded intensity gave her a bit of a ‘crazy girl’ vibe that made some unsaid promises.

Garrison was already up and on the stage, talking with Judge Mathews, and he waved you and the others over. He congratulated you with a big, ready smile that told you he was either proud of the showing the four of you had put on, or he’d won a bet. Or both.

“An excellent showing, Counsel,” Judge Mathews said, shaking each of your hands. “I was **** to give you your second motion to dismiss since I wanted to see what you had cooked up for your defence, but it was well argued.”

“That motion was all Eric,” you said, giving your teammate his kudos. “Though our overall strategy was spearheaded by Sabrina.”

“It was a team effort,” Sabrina said humbly.

“A team effort led by you,” Gemma said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and giving her a side hug.

“Can I ask, Your Honour, the scenario seemed a little stilted to our side,” Sabrina said. “And since you put it together… Was that intentional?”

“Mmm, a fair question,” Judge Mathews said. “Let me ask you this - if it were intended to be stilted, what sort of lesson would that teach collegiate-level mock trial participants?”

“Life’s not fair?” Eric guessed.

Judge Mathews laughed and shook his head. “That is a good lesson to keep in mind, but no. It’s intended as a lesson in proactive assessment. This is an advanced Mock Trial scenario, filled with hundreds of data points to try and assess and track. The real lesson is about focus - a good lawyer tries to win. A great lawyer can keep their win condition in the forefront of their mind at all times. You four didn’t let your defence get swayed off course, and you identified the pitfalls of where you could have burned time fighting battles that didn’t matter.”

“So it was the opposition's job to try and distract us?” Gemma asked.

“No,” Judge Mathews said and a gentle shake of his head. “They needed to contend with the same lesson. An issue I found in all my years of adjudicating mock trials was that prospective lawyers viewed them as games, which meant that they focused more on the fun of the fight and winning battles and it sets an unrealistic precedent that can burn them when they have passed the bar - the vast majority of lawsuits settle. The best showing I’ve ever seen in this scenario was a Plaintiff team who were able to create reasonable suspicion of the legality of the policy, giving themselves a small amount of leverage right off the top, and then pushed for a settlement.

“Now, I believe there are a handful of other folks who are waiting for my attention,” Judge Mathews continued. “Congratulations again, it was a pleasure seeing you all put your obvious hard work to use. I assume you’re all applying to Law School?”

You all nodded in agreement.

“Well then,” he said. “I’ll be forwarding on letters of recommendation for you to Terry, then. You’ve all performed with the skill of proper law students, and you deserve to achieve those goals.”

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